


Where the Road Ends

by azurefishnets



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Eventual Romance...of a kind, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-11-01 23:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20544455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurefishnets/pseuds/azurefishnets
Summary: If the Heralds make it to the Union to get a shot at living a life of their own, and Tariq already has his friends and his interests in the material world, what’s left for Celeste? Maybe she could find herself unexpectedly close to Jodi, who’s good with distance and silence and also feels like the world doesn’t need her anymore...(Prompt by laughingpineapple)





	Where the Road Ends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughingpineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/gifts).

Celeste was no longer sure of the exact count of days since the last Rite or, in any event, had convinced herself that the knowledge was currently unnecessary. What need of it, indeed, when she wandered aimlessly? It had been many months since Tariq had paused his journey to learn the ways of mortality for a time, and that was all that was needed to know.

It was certainly a truth that she had encouraged Tariq on his path of self-discovery. His fascination with the mortals and their ways had always been the path he walked down, and she had merely freed him to pursue it. Celeste herself had had no path to walk; she had never needed one in the slow days of her mountain fastness between Liberation Rites. She, and the vision she stood for, had been the end of the road. Perhaps it had not been happiness, as mortals understood it, but it was contentment, in that rarefied air of starsong and the glory of the Scribes’ vision.

With the loss of the songs came the loss of that reflected glory. At long last, Celeste’s footsteps had led her away to a new beginning, as she sought the same joy in wandering that had claimed Tariq for so long. To light the way for her own aimlessness was not a path she’d ever chosen; for all of Tariq’s charms, his light was never the one she’d sought to warm and guide her through the dark places. They were each other’s lullaby and prayer, a continuous hymn and symbol of the Scribes, but he had found the end of his road, at least for this little time. If two could not be a braid, how could one errant lock of hair even consider such a connection?

She had thought to go to the furthest edges of the old Commonwealth, once called the Bloodborder, to determine if their way home might lie through these desolate reaches. Leave, she would not, not without Tariq, and yet the search must continue. Ever opposite, ever apposite to their task as the Scribes’ will, and so thus, Tariq would be the fixed point, and she would roam. It had been a solid plan, and it had taken only a bare handful of days in these blasted wastes to know it was a mistake.

She stood now, silent, staring at the face of a man gone red with too much drink and the dark of the sky beyond. A random bandit, perhaps, or one of the rare Commonwealth loyalists, yet unsubdued, and sharper and more vicious for their time evading both Sahrian defenders and their mutual enemies in the Highwing Remnants. He had tried to intimidate her; Celeste, overseer of hundreds of Liberation Rites and thousands of hard-bitten criminals, had seen better attempts.

His voice wavered, much like the knife he waved in her direction. The flask in his other hand sloshed so much he spilled some. Celeste watched the dark drops fall, far down into the ravine by which they stood.

“You—you just shtay there, lady. This here pretty thing and I have a… a date in a pawn shop…” He aimed a careless kick at the mandolin on the ground between them, then aimed an appraising eye in her direction. “Yer a pretty thing too…. betcha got shome… some nishe jewelry under that cloak of yers….”

Celeste stared at him, golden eyes blazing with fury. She had been lulled by the quiet of the night and the ever-moaning wind into believing herself to be alone and had thus been taken off guard when her assailant appeared from nowhere and ripped the mandolin from her hands, then promptly dropped it with his own suddenly nerveless ones when she caught his gaze. It had cried out like a child when it hit the ground, and the Titans ringing them laughed to see her caught unaware.

“Unhand that instrument, lest I unhand you,” Celeste said as she stood, her tone cool and controlled even as her temper flared. “I have been patient, but I shall suffer your foolishness no longer if you attempt to take what is mine.”

“Mouthy bitch. Shut up while a man’s talking.” The man kicked out again, glee in his face at her impotent fury. He could not hurt her or it. The Scribes’ works were stronger than that. Celeste knew she could easily overpower him, but there would be some difficulty in retrieving her instrument if he knocked it over the side. It was already sliding perilously close.

“I should not call you a man, personally.” The voice was calm and casual, even perhaps, slightly amused. “I could not even call you a dog, as the curs I know would never forgive me for it. No, you must be trash in vaguely human form—that is certainly all I see when I look at you.”

The man confronting Celeste jumped and gasped, turning to face the other woman that had strolled around a large rock and flanked him while they were distracted. Celeste took advantage of the dual distraction to glide forward and take her mandolin back. She began to walk away, as mortals and their games meant little as long as she was unaffected, but some prurient curiosity caused her to look back.

The muscular lady who had confronted them disarmed the man with a quick twist and flip, leaving him unconscious on the ground and the knife and flask in the ravine somewhere. The young Harp and nomad accompanying her immediately began the task of binding him.

Celeste gave the woman a hard stare; she was familiar, of course, as every person who had gone through the Liberation Rites would be, but mortal connections were for Tariq, not her. Nevertheless, she gave the woman a cordial if constrained nod and turned away as she adjusted the thick cloak back over her dark hair.

“Wait—” Celeste turned back in polite inquiry as the woman came to her, stepping over the limp body of the bandit with some delicacy. “I _thought _it was you,” the woman said, peering into the shadow of Celeste’s cloak, the torch in her hand raised high. “The Scribes’ other Herald. From Mount Alodiel.”

Celeste prided herself on her equanimity in the face of surprise, but she had not expected the woman to recognize her. “You’re from the Downside?” She pointedly ignored that tell-tale “other,” although she could feel Tariq’s distant amusement. She shoved it away; he had no place here. She hoped the woman would think Celeste had forgotten her, lest she be tempted to tarry too long.

The woman let out an ironic huff of air. “I don’t know where I’m from, at this point.” She reached up, absently, and patted down an errant strand over an odd lump on her skull, the long blonde braid of her hair sliding comfortably over her shoulder. “But yes, we met in the Downside. I was… I had succumbed to my despair at that point. You may remember the horns.”

“Captain Jodariel.” Celeste nodded, a small concession to the woman in front of her even as she drew herself inward. The name on her tongue was too lyrical; she found herself lingering on the syllables where she had meant to say it once and have done. She was unused to the sound of speech on her tongue at all, after these many days without a companion. The returning music of it was sweet.

Jodariel gave her a small, ironic smile. “They call me General Jodariel now, and other titles. I would have kept only the title of Nightwing, were it up to me and stayed with the family we had built…but Volfred’s Plan meant needs must as the imps drive, or some such nonsense.” She sighed. “Have you… seen our Reader? Since you left? Or the others we left behind?”

Celeste shook her head. “I am no longer constrained to the Downside and I shall not need to go back there until long after your time has passed.” She looked up at the lightening sky, the dawn emerging. “Until the stars once more align.”

Jodariel nodded. “I know that Tariq is with Volfred, and has been for some little time, but where will you go now?”

“Home awaits, out there somewhere. My search continues, with or without Tariq.”

“Perhaps you should take an escort, at least through this stretch of mountains.” Jodariel looked Celeste over, appraising her with a soldier’s eye. “I am sorry, Herald, I should have asked. Are you hurt? This rabble had you at knifepoint.” She turned and fixed the man, now sitting shakily up, with a diamond glare from her clear blue eyes.

Celeste stroked the body of her mandolin, not looking at Jodariel or the man, glad that the flush that had risen unbidden and unprecedented when Jodariel stared at her was hidden by the shapeless drape of her hood. She was unaccustomed to this kind of singular focus, and so she diverted the question. “Nay, his threats were meaningless. This—“ she tapped the mandolin, “—is all that matters to me and it is unharmed.”

Jodariel nodded again. “Good. The Scribes’ will be done. And in the meantime… what would you have me do with this lout?”

“You would give _me_ the choice? The responsibility for this man?”

Jodariel shrugged, the muscles of her still-impressive shoulders rippling under the light armour she wore. “Within reason, of course. We don’t do Downside punishments anymore. But even without a full squad, I can still march him off to whatever consequence you deem worthy.”

Celeste hummed, a small tuneless note or three as she looked down at the man. Once the Rites would have supplied all, retribution and glory alike, and the Scribes’ will done indeed. She had never been asked to make her own judgment before, not in the hundreds of years of her life. She stared down at him as he squinted up at her. “Where would you go, where you freed right now?”

“Back to before the Commonwealth was taken over by a bunch of _freaks—“ _The young Harp guard’s eyes narrowed, but a warning hand from her General stayed the clutching talon of her retribution.

“The only escape from time for one such as you is death. We cannot go back,” Celeste told him, then turned away. “Take him to his future, General, whatever that may be. I have no more to say.”

Jodariel reached out a hand, not flinching as Celeste fixed her with a stare. “Herald, it is not my place to order you, but I ask you to let me accompany you through this mountain range. There are many pockets of loyalists and bandits and I would not like to hear of a sudden rash of their deaths.” She gave Celeste a sudden, real smile, dazzling in its brightness. “Truly, I am sure you can protect yourself but for my peace of mind I ask you this boon.”

Celeste’s lips quirked. “Delicacy from a demon?”

Jodariel’s smile fell a little, but she nodded. “From one who knows what strangeness is, shall we say?” She paused, but added, as if an afterthought, “And the signs of my time in the Downside are nearly gone. Can you say the same?” She held Celeste’s eyes without fear, only squinting a little, as if staring into the sun.

Celeste blinked first. A hit, given and returned, and her attempted deflection neatly countered. Perhaps some little time spent with a mortal would be more welcome than she gave it credit for; at the very least this one had no shortage of native wit.

“I make no promises as to my entertainment value for your time but know that my search is priority. I walk where I will, and we part ways when you have satisfied yourself that I need no further assistance.”

Jodariel smiled again. “Call me Jodariel, then. Or Jodi. General is for the Union and these young chicks that think I am their mother for some reason.” She waved vaguely at the two finishing up with the sullen bandit. “Let me tell my aide my plans and I shall be with you shortly.”

Celeste nodded. “Aye, as you will, General.” She slung her mandolin over her shoulder and turned to walk. “Perhaps you shall catch up to me by midmorning.”

* * *

The Herald found herself accompanied by the General within the hour, sans soldiers or anything but a pack. Quietly, she was a little impressed. The former demon was probably not a young woman anymore, but she seemed as strong and agile as any nomad Celeste had ever seen dominate the Rites. Nevertheless, Celeste ignored her and continued walking. She had not asked for companionship on her road; the distant presence of Tariq, shining somewhere far distant, was enough. But, she couldn’t help privately admitting, to herself and perhaps to the listening moon, it was pleasant in some tangible way to have the General’s stolidity at her shoulder.

Celeste was loathe to make conversation, but Jodariel didn’t seem to mind. After some time in silence, as the sun rose higher and they climbed together, the General pulled rations from her pack. She offered Celeste one; the Herald recoiled. It smelled vile. Jodariel shrugged and ate.

After a moment, Celeste succumbed to curiosity, again. “I thought the food here was supposed to be better than the Downside, or so Tariq assured me, but this… thing you are eating appears hideous and smells far worse. Is this truly what mortals have to do to sustain themselves?”

The General squinted down at the ration bar in her hand. “I do have to eat something every once in a while. And, although to be honest, Hedwyn’s food _was _better than this, I chose this life over staying back in the Capitol and eating the finest food the Union could offer.”

Celeste pondered for a moment. “Why?” Even as she asked she wondered at herself. Was curiosity catching? Some mortal infestation?

“What is there back there for me, in this land of unity? In these peaceful towns and cities? Volfred’s Revolution was peaceful, bloodless… and that is worth everything and more that a battered old soldier could bring to the table. They don’t need me. Even Dae has grown beyond the need of my mothering her.”

“And so you chose a lonely life and terrible food?”

“I choose a life where I choose what I do and where I go. Isn’t that what you are doing as well?” Jodariel stretched, stuffing the last bite of ration in her mouth. “And I’m not lonely, Herald. My family lies across the breadth of this world and I have only to think of them to know they think of me too. We all see the same sun, the same moon.”

Celeste looked at her askance as they walked onward, saying nothing more for the moment. There was some truth to Jodariel’s statement, but… aimlessness as purpose? Wandering for the sake of freedom and no more? The very idea was blasphemous in a way, antithetical to the Scribes’ vision, and yet. They had wanted freedom for all as well. Celeste had been created to ensure it. What was heresy in one sense might be seen as a new paradigm in another, the Will of the original Scribes acceding to the mores of a new time. She had much to ponder.

At last, long into the night, they stopped. Jodariel made no complaints but sat by the fire she built and luxuriated in the small warmth, wordlessly rubbing her shoulders and legs to release the pain of burgeoning arthritis. Celeste looked to the sky, where the Titans howled as they had done since the Rites ended, and in sheer self-defense took her mandolin and began to play. To her surprise, Jodariel began to hum along. Almost, Celeste’s fingers faltered, but she recovered and they finished the song together, even the Titanic howl only Celeste could hear softening in response.

“You have a most pleasant voice, General.”

Jodariel flushed and looked away. “It’s nowhere near Tariq’s. You must think me foolish.”

Celeste shook her head, black hair sliding loose and silky from its cloaking hood. “There is no shame in being unable to sing like a Herald, but you acquitted yourself most admirably. It was… pleasant to make music with someone again.”

Jodariel blinked. “It was my honor to be of service to you, Herald, if such it was.”

“Aye, perhaps we can be of some kind of service to each other… Jodariel. I thank you for the lesson.”

Jodariel looked at her in some puzzlement but said nothing more as she slowly fell into an uneasy slumber. Celeste looked down the road. She could leave, be about her journey and no harm done to either of them. The road waited, as did the stars. She looked up, past the Titans, to the one returned star, singing its lone songs in the far distant sky. It seemed to rebuke her. _Have faith_, it said.

Celeste sat down next to Jodariel, watching the embers of the fire die into the night. To return faithlessness for faith was not what the Scribes would have willed. If Tariq could love a mortal for a time, surely it was within her own power to walk with one until they left the mountains? She peered at Jodariel, shivering in the lowering light of the dying fire. Without truly knowing why, she shifted a little closer, allowing the heat of her soul-essence to radiate a little more. Jodariel stopped shivering as the night wore on, and so the sun sat patiently, waiting for the dawn.

* * *

Days turned into weeks, and yet the soldier walked with the sun, uncomplaining and unfaltering as they left the Bloodborder behind and turned their steps to the lands beyond. They fell into a rhythm in their days: long marches followed by stops when Jodariel needed to sleep. Celeste slowly learned to see the mortal cues of exhaustion and hunger. What Jodariel took from this, however, was still a mystery and at last, Celeste succumbed to her curiosity.

“I ask you again, General. Why?” She said it abruptly one evening. They had found a small town with an inn. Jodariel had said nothing about stopping, but Celeste could see it in her face, with the new-found knowledge she had earned, that she would welcome the rest.

Celeste had nothing with which to pay but her music, and so she, with Jodariel’s undervoiced coaching, negotiated songs for Jodariels’s supper, a private room, and a hot bath. The old soldier unbound her hair and sank into the heat of the tub with a sigh of relief. Celeste sat back and watched her, with the detachment of a physician observing her client.

“Why what, Herald?” Jodariel blinked open her eyes, squinting tiredly at Celeste. Celeste, looking at her face, noted the wrinkles and gray hairs, slowly making their presence known, even in the months of their travel. She aged before Celeste’s eyes, a mystery beyond a Herald’s solving.

“Why this life? Why here? You wondered the Downside with more comfort than this and yet you choose this kind of freedom? I simply do not understand.”

Jodariel closed her eyes again. “I suppose it was Volfred’s fault. Well, his and Tariq’s.”

Celeste’s eyes narrowed, not liking where this was going. “What do you mean?”

“I visited them, back in the Capitol. I don’t understand their relationship if I’m honest, but the Prime Minister has changed a lot of things about this world. I suppose I can’t fault him for also changing how the world sees love.” She shook her head. “That’s not really the important part, in any case. Volfred spoke about you to me.”

Celeste raised a brow. “I was not aware my presence or lack thereof had presented a complication to the Prime Minister.”

“Truth told, Herald, I believe Volfred was worried that you may run afoul of the very situation in which I found you.”

“So he sent you after me to protect me?” Celeste stood, abruptly furious. “That is unnecessary and insulting.”

“No, you misunderstand. Tariq and I both told Volfred his worries were unfounded. I have spent my life protecting those too weak to protect themselves. You do not strike me as one of those, and Tariq was quick to assure me I was correct.”

“Then _why_?” Celeste spread her hands. “What could you possibly gain from my company?”

“Must I gain anything? Can I not see your journey through the world and envy you your freedom to be exactly who and what you are? I left the Union to search for a place I was needed, as you did. I did not set out to find you but I believe it to be the will of the Scribes that I did.” She met Celeste’s eyes, clear blue to simmering gold. “I watched over my children at the end of the Age. Is it so strange to believe that I might want to be there at the birth of a new one?”

Celeste subsided. “…perhaps not for you. I must admit that it is strange. For me. To... want things.”

Jodariel blinked, then gave her a small, ironic smile. “Perhaps you and Tariq are not as alike as it seems.”

Celeste frowned. “He is my other half. We are much the same.”

“Perhaps. But Tariq wants. I’ve seen the outcome his wants created.”

“We are the Will of the Scribes. We were never meant to have wills of our own.”

“Well, Tariq does. And I think you do too. Do you know what it is that you will?”

Celeste thought. “A way home.” She thought a little more, and added, much more softly, “…and to understand you.”

“Then I walk with you where the road goes, until the Scribes will me not to, for there is nowhere I would rather be.” Jodariel nodded, firmly, then leaned her head back. “I will admit that I am tired, though, old soldier to unknowable Herald. I don’t suppose I could ask for a sleep in a proper bed before we go?”

Celeste blinked, suddenly and unaccustomedly shamed. “You have every right to take the time you need.” She reached out and touched a finger to the cooling bathwater. “I shall leave you to your bath.” The steam rose again as Jodariel relaxed back into her soak and Celeste strode outside to watch the stars and consider, yet again, the paths that the Scribes had foreseen.

* * *

Weeks turned into months and years, and still the Herald and her soldier traveled hither and yon, their feet sometimes turning them back to the Union and then again to the wildernesses beyond. Occasionally they visited old friends, Celeste sitting stiff and uncomfortable while Jodi laughed and repeated old tales, but to her surprise, whenever Celeste chose to leave, Jodariel always chose to continue to travel along with her.

Celeste found herself making a small private hobby of Jodariel-watching. When she was tired, when she was melancholy, when she made a small private joke and the corners of her mouth twitched just so. It was fascinating. She had seemed so stone-faced, so reserved, but Celeste slowly learned that, like her, the old soldier was adept at creating a face for the world to see that did not necessarily mirror the world within her.

Celeste woke one grey dawn to find Jodariel gone from the room at the inn at which they currently stayed, on the shores of the great River Sclorian, where once Jodariel had been sent to exile and which Celeste had only seen in passing. They would have passed on by this time as well, but Jodariel had been taken with a fever as they traveled and Celeste had agreed that a few days respite may be sore-needed. They had been there for several days; the local physician was trained at the great college of medicine in the Capitol and had assured them that rest was all that was needed. That had seemed reassuring, but Jodariel had disappeared.

Although the river was not generally in use anymore, abandoned jetties still stuck into the river, haphazardly spaced along its length. Celeste, looking east, found Jodariel sitting on one such, hair down and barefoot. The last of her hooves had receded into her skin, although they left callouses Jodariel had to scrub with volcanic rock to soften. For now, she dangled them in the river.

Although her nose wrinkled with the smell of river water and mud, Celeste walked on the pier to stand next to Jodariel, looking down at her with, she suddenly realized, some fondness. She was unused to such a feeling. She had never in all her years been “fond” of anyone before—Tariq was equal parts exasperation, bemusement, and puzzlement, and the Scribes had only engendered awe in their creation. She had never known anyone else long enough to be fond of them before, but she had let the soldier slip past her guard long since.

“Are you well?” she asked. Worry was as new an emotion as fondness.

“As well as anyone can be,” Jodariel said absently, eyes fixed far downriver.

Celeste looked that way as well, where lay the Downside and all the places that once she had watched from her mountain, waiting for the Rites to begin and end and begin again. She had not known how to be lonely then, another new and not wholly welcome feeling the human world had taught her, but after Tariq had gone back to take his chances with mortal entanglements, she had missed the feeling of someone at her side. She had not had to feel that for a long time. Gratitude, even stranger and more startling than loneliness, welled within her.

“Sit with me, Celeste,” Jodariel said, her voice unaccustomedly soft. “Let us watch the sunrise.” She looked up at Celeste, eyes bright and cheeks still flushed and soft with the last remnants of fever.

“Nay, Jodariel, You must go back to your bed and rest. We shall watch the sun rise together another day.”

“No, sit and play a song. Tariq used to play one when we crossed the Sea of Solis, and solace it was indeed. Do you know it?”

“Tariq knows no songs that I do not also know,” Celeste said, tossing her head. “But you are ill and should not be in this chill air.”

“One song.” Jodariel leaned back and closed her eyes. “No more am I a demon, but I doubt you could drag me anywhere I do not want to go.”

“Aye, you have more than proven that over the course of this journey,” Celeste shot back.

“I have, haven’t I?” Jodariel looked pleased.

Celeste shook her head, but sat down, pulled her mandolin out and played the opening notes, then opened her mouth and let the words come.

_“Before the salt and roiling sea_  
_The moon began to cry_  
_ The valley ran with sorrowful tears_  
_ And filled the waters high…”_

Jodariel listened intently, turning her face to look downriver again. When Celeste finished, the old soldier’s eyes were damp with tears. When at least she spoke, her voice was rough. “What do those words mean, anyway? I never learned the language, despite Volfred’s best attempts.”

“It is a tale of the Scribes and the defeat of Unfathomed Plurnes, when the Deathless Tempest was formed,” Celeste told her, then stopped, puzzled. “If you do not know the tale, why then do you cry?”

Jodariel blinked and raised a hand to her eyes, drawing her fingers away with moisture. “Do I? I didn’t realize… I suppose it’s more nostalgia than anything. There are those down there I shall never see again in this life, as much my family as anyone up here in the Union. Our Reader… the others… they gave their freedom for so that we have ours, but even now, I ask, why me? I have little to offer the Union. I was a soldier before and for years I was a soldier again. And now I am old and ill and grown maudlin, without even the strength a demon might still offer.” She huffed, a snort of laughter or resignation, and sat up. “Thank you for the song. I’ll go back.” She shivered. “I’ve gotten cold anyway.”

Celeste put her mandolin away and stood, pulling Jodariel up as the rising sun burned away the morning mists and shone golden over the clouds. “I cannot say that I know what the Union gained from your presence,” she told the old soldier. “I am sure it was more than you believe. I certainly cannot say that it has gained anything from mine.”

“We are joined in aimlessness, then. A home of sorts, even in wandering.”

Celeste cocked her head. “You said the song was a solace to you. I admit to finding a sort of solace in your company that I never expected to gain.”

“I, as well, or I would have gone home long since. You’ve asked me why… perhaps that is the answer.” Jodariel took a step, and faltered. “I fear I have overreached myself… I’m a little dizzy.”

Celeste paused only a bare second, then offered her arm. “Let us go back together, then.”

They walked, step by slow step, back, and Celeste helped Jodariel braid her hair before getting her back into bed to rest. By that afternoon, the fever had broken, and both of them found themselves eager to get back on the road.

* * *

Long had they travelled together when the soldier, at last, could no longer follow the sun. Jodariel asked Celeste one last boon: to return to the Union once more. And so they retraced their steps, rather more quickly than they had gone, the Herald having to support the General for the last leg of the journey.

At last, Jodariel was able to lie at her ease, such of her family as could physically be there at her side. While Celeste and Tariq spoke together, Jodi spoke to the rest of the Nightwings at length, until one by one, with hugs and laughter and reminiscences, they made their good-byes, until Celeste was left alone with Jodariel once more.

“A final time I ask you: why?”

Jodi laughed. All vestiges of demonhood had long disappeared; only the signs of all-too-brief mortality remained. Celeste, of course, remained unchanged.

“I have answered this before, and my answer has changed each time. Purpose… freedom… those answers are still true. Help me sit up a little?”

“Then… do you feel your life was well spent on this road? With me?” Celeste carefully propped Jodariel with pillows, then sat next to her, pulling the mandolin out and playing softly.

“I had my choice to leave, Celeste. I stayed. For freedom, for purpose… and, perhaps, eventually, for love.” Jodariel put out a hand, just touching the body of the mandolin, the vibrations in the chamber resonating through her fingers.

“Love?” Celeste’s hair hid her face, her eyes turned from Jodariel’s.

“I used to tell the children stories… tales of the Scribes and Titans, tales of mystery and danger and romance… and so let me tell you one, old storyteller to musician… Once upon a time, a Herald chose a mortal. Their choice and their plans ended an Age. I saw the world change and knew what I was had to change with it. And then, I found you. You had purpose… you had freedom…” Her voice was growing raspy with fatigue now, and Celeste finished the piece she played and switched to a lullaby to ease her.

“And so… a mortal chose a Herald. Not for the same reasons, but perhaps it came to the same in the end? Perhaps it wasn’t love such as Tariq, Volfred, and Oralech built and understood it between them, but I grew to admire you, to believe in you, and it did not matter to me if it was reciprocated.”

“Captain Jodariel.” Celeste remembered back to the very last Liberation Rite, when she and Tariq had sung the story of Nightwings to the vanished stars. “Perhaps it was beyond my understanding. Perhaps it always will be. But I have always admired your clarity of insight and believed that you were worth more than the Commonwealth cared to admit… and perhaps, somewhere along the way, we too built a kind of love beyond human understanding.” She put the mandolin down and took Jodariel’s hand, the warmth of her radiating into Jodariel’s cold fingertips.

“Then that is enough. Tell me, Celeste… do the Scribes Will me home at last?”

“Aye, Jodariel, I believe they do.”

“And I ask you, one last time in return: what do you will?”

“A way home.”

“Then tell our story, for those who, even yet, cannot read… and perhaps love will change the world once more. Enough, anyway.” Jodariel smiled for her one last time, and Celeste held her hand until the warmth left it. At length, she pulled her own hair from its enshrouding cloak and carefully braided it the way she had seen Jodariel do many times throughout their journey, then picked up the mandolin again.

“I have never been a composer,” she told Jodariel. “Tariq was always more talented at that than I—I was always the one that had to remain composed. Forgive me; this will not be my best playing.” The notes rang out, and if Celeste did not cry, the mandolin’s strings wept for her as she played a piece that Tariq had no part in, for the first time in the breadth of her existence.

When it was done, she stood. “Once you followed me on a journey long past your endurance. Know now that where you go, I will follow when I can.” She left the room, meeting Tariq and the rest of the Nightwings out in the sweet air of the Union’s evening. They looked to the sky together, half expecting what they would see. Far distant, Celeste knew their kin in the Downside did the same. Further still than that, a star burst into brilliance, the light of it beginning its own long journey to bathe the earth, its song thrilling into harmony with its companion in the sky. For a moment, the Titans fell silent.

Celeste bade farewell to them all. The signs of age lay more gently on some than others, but she knew someday she would see them all again. She knew also that they were puzzled; she had learned and changed much in her years traveling with Jodariel. The braid she now wore was only a visible sign of the change effected in her. Volfred asked her, “Where will you go now?”

For a moment, Jodariel’s face, asking her the same question in a time far distant, swam before her memory. The answer had not changed; the context, perhaps, had.

“My journey continues and I follow the stars. Where the road ends is where I will find my home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for this prompt! I came to appreciate this pairing a lot more as I wrote it and I'm glad my road with it could begin in Press Start. Hope you enjoyed!


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